Welcome to the latest edition of Media Watch. Over the last week we’ve seen the UK Government give in to demands for an inquiry into grooming gangs, while a debate about the future of the BBC licence fee has opened up.
The Musk effect
So far this year the billionaire Twitter/X owner Elon Musk seems to have cropped up in UK political discourse much more than most of us would’ve liked.
Just moments after we’d all got our feet under the desks after Hogmanay, Musk was accusing safeguarding minister Jess Phillips of being a “rape genocide apologist”.
His comments followed Labour’s decision to decline a Whitehall-led inquiry into child sexual abuse in Oldham, with Phillips saying she faced a “deluge of hate” on the back of Musk’s remarks.
Since then, it has been confirmed there will be government-backed local inquiries into grooming gangs. Four new inquiries, in addition to one already agreed upon in Oldham, will be funded and assisted by central government.
But cabinet minister Lisa Nandy last week rejected claims Musk’s posts spurred the Government into action, saying she does not believe “that this Government is being driven by what happens on social media”.
Asked if the tech boss’ intervention had prompted the Government’s action, Nandy told Sky News: “I utterly refute that.”
The threat and power of Musk surely had some part to play though. Professor Alexis Jay, the woman who led a seven-year probe into child sexual abuse, said people should be getting on with implementing the reforms she set out, adding she had had “enough of inquiries”. So it begs the question, why did the UK Government appear to make efforts to appease Musk?
The extent of the saga – which included the first PMQs of the year being dominated by the issue – shows we can expect to see more interventions from the richest man on earth in our politics.
Former first minister Humza Yousaf has challenged him to a debate after all, following a series of bitter online clashes between the pair.
“Name the day, name the hour, name the minute. I'll be there. But I suspect [Musk] wouldn’t dream of it,” he told The National in an exclusive interview.
We’ll be there if he dares.
The licence fee question
From the new world of social media-led news to the older world of terrestrial TV, there is now much talk about the future of the BBC licence fee.
Nandy told BBC Breakfast last week the fee was “not only insufficient, it’s raising insufficient money to support the BBC, but it also is deeply regressive”, and the UK Government has said it is looking at alternatives.
However, Nandy did say general taxation as a replacement is not being considered as she wants to “protect the BBC from the sort of political interference that we saw under the last government.”
A subscription model is said to be among the options being looked at.
The BBC has been cash-strapped in recent years following the licence fee being frozen for two years at £159 – before it was increased at a lower rate than the corporation expected. It is to rise to £174.50 in April.
BBC journalist calls out Israel
Finally, in an extremely welcome move, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen was seen calling out Israel on Monday for blocking international journalists from reporting in Gaza.
Reporting from Tel Aviv, Bowen said he didn’t think Israel wanted “the outside world to see what they have done”.
International journalists are only allowed into Gaza if they are accompanied by the Israeli military. Palestinian journalists based in Gaza have therefore been relied upon to report on the ongoing war.
Bowen said: “One reason I’m standing here and not in Gaza is because the Israelis don’t international journalists like myself in there to report freely. We rely on very brave Palestinian freelancers to help us out and do a lot of work for us. I think the Israelis don’t really want the outside world to see what they have done which is why, for over 15 months, they haven’t let us in.”
After the BBC were called out last week for shutting down a guest who called Israel’s assault on Gaza “genocidal”, it was refreshing to see Bowen highlight Israel stopping journalists from reporting freely on Gaza.
